10 years, 120 months, 520 weeks, 3650 days
by ifanybodyasks-iwasneverhere
Summary: Your name is Tavros Nitram. You're twenty four years old, you stand just short of five foot eleven, you drink your coffee black, and the love of your life has been locked up in the state penitentiary for the past ten years. ((Humanstuck, PB&J angst, one-shot, warnings inside))


**A/N: **Yes, hello again. Surprise! I'm not dead! I know, such a disappointment.

I decided I wanted to start trying to write drabbles again, since writing has become harder and harder for me over the past year. So I made a deal with my wonderful amazing friend that we'd do some prompt challenges together! I got this one from a tumblr blog, yeahwriters, and the prompt challenge was to write about someone whose better half was in prison. And thus, this little one-shot happened.

So as far as warnings go, beware of the angsty feelstuck ahead. Heavy mention of the sober Gamzee episode, heavy mention of drugs, lots of swearing and lots of healing from this fucking webcomic that sucked my soul away. Also lots of PB&amp;J, and plenty mention of pale GamKar post break-up. Small mentions of Goatdad being a huge prick, also Lord English heheh.

I apologize in advance for sort of rushing to post this, so sorry if it sucks.

This one goes out to you, Jenny. You know I love you very much, you are the chan to my senpai. This is going to hurt you much more than it is going to hurt me.

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Your name is Tavros Nitram. You're twenty four years old, you stand just short of five foot eleven, you drink your coffee black, and the love of your life has been locked up in the state penitentiary for the past ten years.

He was your best friend. Well, he still is, but along the line somewhere... he was lost. You had lost faith in him, and he had lost faith in himself. Nay, everyone lost faith in him, and he lost everything. Perhaps it was just that pity that brought you back to him. That pity, and knowing that... somewhere in there... Gamzee was still, well, Gamzee. Not the kid who beat his friend almost to death, attacked his sister, and tried next to beat his only other best friend with a juggling pin. Not the kid who talked about himself in the third person to the questioning police officers, because this was all just a game to him. Not the kid who turned his back on all his friends and everyone who ever meant something to him, and sold his ass to some drug lord. He sickly enjoyed it all. You can't believe no one ever saw it coming, it started small with buying weed and then he willingly got involved with some shit he shouldn't have. Before you know it, he's locked up, barely even sixteen yet.

Ten years. Today marked the day, ten years, one hundred and twenty months, five hundred and twenty weeks, three thousand six hundred and fifty days. You'd count the minutes if you could have.

You remember when he was first admitted. You couldn't even think to look at him, much less talk to him, or even about him... months rolled by before you went to your friends, crawling out from under your rock. The way they talked about him churned your stomach. They so easily turned on him, no better than the way he turned on them, out casting him as a monster and a traitor. Less than human. To be hated. All his good memories forgotten, he was nothing but a dark stain on them now that they believed would wash out over time. They'd forgotten they were his friends, too, once upon a time. You were the only person who ever treated him like you did. He was always a joke to them, his beliefs were ridiculous and thus should be treated as a source of entertainment, until they either got bored or annoyed with him.

Something told you, maybe he was playing dumb at times... The way he'd pretend he'd forgotten the plot every time he'd come over and watch Peter Pan with you, and act all surprised, or asked you questions, because he knew you loved it. The way he mindlessly pretended Karkat's aggressive friendship was tough love, and put too much trust in anyone and everyone. Maybe that was what wore him down, when he started being treated like an idiot. Who knew what was going through his head. All you know is that the Gamzee from that night wasn't the same Gamzee you grew up to love.

It was a rough start, but you thought about it. You didn't even want to think about him at first, but everything started to get to you more and more along the way. You grew up together. You were there when you were in kindergarten, you would play outside and he'd stub his toes, but he could never go crying to his daddy. You were there in those dark middleschool days, when you were dying your hair black and trying to be "goth." You were there for every single highschool lunch where you'd lay around and write lyrics down in a worn out notebook, talking about how you'd be rich and famous rap artists one day. You were the only one there when he began to question his sexuality, and he had a whole breakdown over it. You were there when he confessed his love to you... and you shot him down. Even then, you were still there. And you were there when he started slipping... it was just weed, you told yourself. Marijuana was harmless to your understanding. What you didn't account for... was him. You thought he was fun, and lively, and entertaining just to sit down and talk to sometimes. You never thought it would become such a horrible problem.

He became too involved, and in time, some drug lord's loyal dog. Hell, you had no idea to begin with, just that every now and then he'd mention the name "English" and refused to answer your questions. He acted like he was destined for that man, though, even when he got in trouble and was forgotten by him in the snap of a finger. You remember back when he still believed he was coming to get him, pretending like maybe he was biding his time, and there was hope. Over time that hope died... but it was so strong at one point, you never thought he'd be convinced otherwise. His allegiance had been sworn.

You remember the first day you wheeled into these doors. It was a year into his sentence and you hadn't so much as spoken a word to him, aside from the letter you wrote that arrived a week before you did. It didn't say much, just making sure you were on the visiting list... you told him that you missed him. It was a special occasion, his birthday. And it so happened that you were the only one to visit. Besides his father on his first day, and Karkat some week in, you were the only one to visit him in a year. And when you got there... it was awful. He was all dried up from those drugs he lied about taking, definitely not handling going cold turkey well... and he was mean. Something you were unused to getting from him. He acted like he only let you in because you were the only person who thought to visit him on his birthday. You were polite... though your thoughts weren't all that nice, and despite some of the things he said, you didn't give up just like that, like everyone else had. He acted like he had given up, though, like he just couldn't be bothered to care any more. He used to be so loving and affectionate... Part of you wondered if you would ever see that Gamzee again. Your Gamzee.

But then you came back in a month later. Then a couple weeks after that. Soon once every week you would visit him. Even on his best days he wasn't pleasant, but after you started to spend more time around him, he softened his hard edge, if only to you. He stopped being so snappy, and angry about everything, even started to act nice around you. You could tell he was trying. You felt like you were finally breaking through to him, it made you feel special... you were the only one to give him this kind of attention. The kind he so desperately needed.

You brought him notebooks and even a fancy art kit for the second birthday of his sentence, he started writing and drawing again. Sometimes he'd give you something. It was hard to explain the feeling when he'd hand you some beautiful work and he told you he'd done it just for you.

You started to warm up to each other again. All kinds of thoughts were swimming through your head and you weren't really sure what to think any more. Was Gamzee getting better? None of his friends would even be here to celebrate him being back... None but you. Is he just being nice because you're the only one to reach out to him in years? Or does he genuinely value the friendship you used to have before this horrible mess happened...? Did he... did he still love you, like the way he desperately fell all over himself for you all those years ago?

Two years. But you'd like to say twenty four months... it softened the blow. One hundred and four weeks. Seven hundred and thirty days.

He'd talk about Karkat sometimes. You didn't have the heart to say anything, but you had a feeling he already knew. He tried to pretend like he didn't care, like he had more important things and Karkat wasn't important to begin with. You easily saw through his mask. He was hurt.

He wasn't a hazard, not a danger to society and not a heartless monster. None of the things you'd heard people say about him. He was misguided, and a bit lost in himself. He could still hurt, he was still human, and all those things people claimed him not to be. And he showed this more and more as you visited him every other day you could.

You grew together as the years passed slowly, you finally got your prosthetic legs and he was the first person you showed outside of your family. You graduated highschool and he was the first person you called.

Before you knew it, five years had passed. Five years, and he finally broke down. You remember it vividly, he had a total meltdown. You'd never seen him cry so hard before, you couldn't even tell what he was saying besides the choked "I'm so motherfuckin' sorry"s and the "I don't know what I was all up and thinkin'"s. "I didn't think I'd be throwin' away everyone I cared about..." He whimpered, wiping his eye. "I didn't think at all, that was my motherfuckin' problem."

"You're too patient with me, Tav. I'm not worth it, I'm not worth anything anymore." Every word tugged hard at your heart and teardrops gathered in the corners of your own eyes as you put your hand up against the glass. "Don't say that, we're best bros, right Gamzee? And what kind of bro would I be, if I just gave up on you like that?" The look on his face as he looked up at you is burned into your memory. His face paintless, his eyes full of tears, his cheeks red and he looked absolutely pitiful. You wished you could hug him tight, and not let him go.

"I love you, Tav... I'm in love with you." He whispered, and you froze, heart wrenching inside your chest as your stomach turned a flip. "E-Even after... you mean you still- and after all these years..." You were stuttering, lost for words. "Motherfuckin' always, brother."

You never knew what to say back after that. You were especially awkward back in highschool, which was why you turned him down in the first place. Gamzee was so straightforward, and confident, and handsome... and everything that you weren't. You preferred to be alone, curled up with a comic book or an old Peter Pan movie and enjoying peaceful silence. Not bothering with relationships, or love, or all that heartwrenchingly difficult and complicated stuff that you were convinced people put themselves through because they were masochistic or something. Anything that involved loving anyone when you couldn't even love yourself. And here you were, full grown yet feeling like a child all over again. Gamzee was the only person who ever treated you the way he did. Sometimes you were convinced he worshiped you. He was the single most nicest person to you, and he'd always been your very best friend. You were his best - and now only - friend, his first crush... and, well, the love of his life you guessed.

You loved him back. But you could barely admit it, not even to yourself. Part of you worried about the whole situation in general, what people would think, how all this had affected him... if he really was the same Gamzee you'd been wishing for, for five years. The other part of you was more caught up in loathsome thoughts about yourself, turning against yourself and convincing you further why you should never be happy with someone else. You weren't even happy with yourself and that was as happy as you could possibly get.

Yet when you were with him... well, you felt confident for once. You never had to worry if he liked you or not because he expressed it in every way he could. You didn't have to worry what he thought about you because he thought out loud. He was the first person to ever make you feel beautiful. And in a prison, no less.

For every day onward, five more years. Sixty months. Two hundred and sixty weeks. One thousand, eight hundred, and fifty two days. You would visit. He'd tell you that he loves you. That you're beautiful, and wonderful, and you knew you were everything in his eyes. After a while you started to believe what he said. You were great, really, you started walking with a little stride in your step. But every time he confessed, over and over every day... you got all choked up, and couldn't say anything back. He never held it against you, though, he just kept making sure you knew, as if he wouldn't be mad even if you never said it back. So long as you knew. He loved you. So, so much.

Today was the three thousandth, six hundred and fiftieth day. The end of five hundred and twenty weeks. Here marked one hundred and twenty months. Ten years.

Today, he was being released. A mixture of good behavior and being admitted as a minor, ten years were up and he was the hell out of there.

And here you were, standing at the doors you remembered from so many years past and recalling all the memories of wheeling in until you could finally step in on your own two - albeit fake - feet, with your head held high. And this time, when you took a deep breath, and pushed them open... he was standing there. Holding a cardboard box of his things, stacked to the top with notebooks full of lyrics and poems and drawings. Wearing some clothes you dropped off for him, your own shirt, the band hoodie he was wearing the very first day he was admitted, and the biggest smile you'd ever seen.

Your heart jumped to your throat and he set the box down to walk over and wrap you in a tight hug. You were sure you squeezed him back tighter, though, as tears sprung to your eyes and you buried your face in his neck and inhaled the scent of his hair. Ten years.

"You're too patient with me, Gam..." You said, he curiously pulled back to look at your face but before he could question you pushed up to the tips of your metal toes and joined your lips together. Soft, and tender, you let the kiss linger on for an unforgettable moment.

"I love you, too."

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**A/N:** Hope you enjoyed! Leave your angsty, depressed PB&amp;J feels in the review box. }:)


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